Many different kinds of food articles or food products, such as food slabs, food bellies, or food loaves are produced in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. There are meat loaves made from various meats, including ham, pork, beef, lamb, turkey, and fish. The meat in the food loaf may be in large pieces or may be thoroughly comminuted. These meat loaves come in different shapes (round, square, rectangular, oval, etc.) and in different lengths up to six feet (183 cm) or even longer. The cross-sectional sizes of the loaves are quite different; the maximum transverse dimension may be as small as 1.5 inches (4 cm) or as large as ten inches (25.4 cm). Loaves of cheese or other foods come in the same great ranges as to composition, shape, length, and transverse size.
Typically the food loaves are sliced, the slices are grouped in accordance with a particular weight requirement, and the groups of slices are packaged and sold at retail. The number of slices in a group may vary, depending on the size and consistency of the food article and the desire of the producer, the wholesaler, or the retailer. For some products, neatly aligned stacked slice groups are preferred. For others, the slices are shingled or folded so that a purchaser can see a part of every slice through a transparent package.
Food articlescan be sliced on high speed slicing machines such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,237 or 5,974,925 or as commercially available as the FX180® slicer available from Formax, Inc. of Mokena, Ill., USA.
The FX180® machine can be configured as an automatically loaded, continuous feed machine, or an automatically loaded, back-clamp or gripper type machine.
For an automatically loaded, continuous feed machine, side-by-side upper and lower conveyor pairs drive food articles into the cutting plane. A gate is located in front of the conveyors. The initial food articles are loaded with leading ends abutting the gate. The gate is lowered and the food articles proceed into the conveyors. When the initial food articles are sliced to the extent that the trailing ends of the food articles clear the gate, the gate is raised and new food articles are loaded in the feed paths, held back by the gate. Shortly thereafter the gate is lowered and new food articles slide down to where lead ends of the new food articles abut trailing ends of the initial food articles being sliced. The new food articles are driven into the cutting plane trailing the initial food articles. Food articles are sequentially and continuously loaded in this manner, lead end-to-trailing end, in abutting contact with the preceding food articles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,237 and European patent EP 0 713 753 describe a back-clamp or gripper type slicing machine. According to this type of slicing machine, two food articles are loaded onto a lift tray and the lift tray is raised to a ready-to-sweep position. Two loaf grippers are retracted after the previous food articles are sliced. During retraction of the loaf grippers, loaf-to-slicing blade gate doors are closed and ends of the previous food articles are dropped through a loaf end door. After the grippers have reached the retracted position or “home position” remote from the slicing blade, a loaf sweep mechanism is activated, moving the food articles laterally together into the slicing position. A spacing mechanism moves down and spaces the food articles apart. The grippers then advance after it has been determined that the loaf sweep mechanism has moved the food articles to the slicing position. The grippers have onboard sensing mechanisms that are triggered by contact with the food articles. After sensing and gripping the food articles, the food articles are retracted slightly, and the loaf-to-slicing blade gate doors are opened and the food articles are advanced to the slicing plane of the slicing blade. The loaf sweep mechanism retracts and the loaf lift tray lowers, ready for the next reload cycle. According to this design, in practice, the reload cycle is accomplished in about eight seconds. In a high volume slicing operation, reload cycle time can be a significant limitation to optimum production efficiency.
In either configuration the FX180® slicing machine has achieved great commercial success. However, the present inventors have recognized that it would be desirable to slice up to four food articles or more with independent feeding and weighing capabilities, with hygienic and operational enhancements.